Did you notice anything different last night when President Obama spoke from the Oval Office? Yup, it looks quite different from how it was when he moved in. About the only remaining item is the desk, called the Resolute, used by every president since Rutherford B. Hayes, except LBJ, Nixon and Ford.
In case a teabagger asks you, none of this was done at taxpayer expense. The monies came from the White House Historical Society via contributions from the Inaugural Committee.
Nor was it Obama's choice to actually make any changes to the Oval Office. After arriving to his new office, his concerns were working on changes to the country, not his office. He considered that quite secondary.
There are five quotations embroidered into the edge of the new rug. They are:
“Government of the People, By the People, For the People” – President Abraham Lincoln
“The Welfare of Each of Us Is Dependent Fundamentally Upon the Welfare of All of Us” – President Theodore Roosevelt
“The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself” – President Franklin D. Roosevelt
“No Problem of Human Destiny Is Beyond Human Beings” – President John F. Kennedy
“The Arc of the Moral Universe Is Long, But It Bends Towards Justice” – Martin Luther King Jr.
If you missed the speech, both text and video are after the jump.
United States Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan issued the following statement:
"The Secret Service is deeply concerned and embarrassed by the circumstances surrounding the State Dinner on Tuesday, November 24.
The preliminary findings of our internal investigation have determined established protocols were not followed at an initial checkpoint, verifying that two individuals were on the guest list.
Although these individuals went through magnetometers and other levels of screening, they should have been prohibited from entering the event entirely. That failing is ours.
The Secret Service safely processed more than 1.2 million visitors last year to the White House complex. In the last several years, the agency has successfully protected more than 10,000 sites for the President, Vice President and other Secret Service protectees, screening more than 7 million people through magnetometers at campaign related events, with more than 1 million during the Inauguration alone.
Even with these successes, we need to be right 100% of the time. While we have protocols in place to address these situations, we must ensure that they are followed each and every time.
As our investigation continues, appropriate measures have been taken to ensure this is not repeated.
The men and women of the U.S. Secret Service are committed to providing the highest level of security for those we are charged to protect, and we will do whatever is necessary to accomplish this mission."
Update: NBC reported last night:
'[A] uniformed officer in the first checkpoint, the first pedestrian checkpoint that night, checked the guest list, didn't see the couple's name on it. But instead of turning them away passed them on, thinking they would be verified at a subsequent checkpoint. They were not.'
Unlike most previous presidents, who take the allotted tax-payer funds and raise additional private ones, the Obama family will be paying for White House renovations and decoration out of their own monies. They have turned down the $100,000 of taxpayer funds to which they are legally entitled.
Certainly, the Obamas can afford to undertake any changes they want: the president made millions on his books. What's really nice about this is their sensitivity to the plight of so many Americans in the current economy.
We know that one of their first purchases was the swing set for Sasha and Malia. (Okay, those swings themselves will hold adults, and I'm sure the girls will share with their parents. I point that out for all the adults, like me, who have trouble walking past a swing without that huge urge to jump on and see how high one can get.) So, I assume that a lot of the initial additional changes will be geared to making the private quarters more kid-friendly.
Did you notice anything different last night when President Obama spoke from the Oval Office? Yup, it looks quite different from how it was when he moved in. About the only remaining item is the desk, called the Resolute, used by every president since Rutherford B. Hayes, except LBJ, Nixon and Ford. 
Unlike most previous presidents, who take the allotted tax-payer funds and raise additional private ones, the Obama family will be 
